Currently, flexible medical tubing is used to transport any variety of liquids during medical procedures. A flexible polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is a typical material used for medical tubing due to their inherent flexibility and translucency. Unfortunately, polyvinyl chloride tubing has significant amounts of low-molecular weight chemicals that can be leached into the human body during medical treatments. Further, disposal of PVC-based wasted by incineration causes environmental issues due to the release of toxic gases.
Alternative materials to flexible PVC have been adopted to make flexible medical tubing. Polymers that may be desired typically include those that are flexible, transparent, and appropriate for certain applications. Unfortunately, these polymers may not have all the physical or mechanical properties desired for flexible medical tubing applications. Further, many of these polymers do not perform well under steam sterilization due to severe softening at temperatures higher than about 100° C. As a result, manufacturers are often left to choose the physical and mechanical properties they desire without an option as to whether it can be steam sterilized.
As such, an improved polymeric material that can be steam sterilized is desired.